The Cape Town Open Education Declaration - Open Education For All

Please read and consider signing the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. The quote below describes what has transpired amid the growing open-access, open-source and Web 2.0 movements over the last few years. And, in my opinion and hopefully many others, why the time is now for such a declaration.

The expanding global collection of open educational resources has created fertile ground for this effort. These resources include openly licensed course materials, lesson plans, textbooks, games, software and other materials that support teaching and learning. They contribute to making education more accessible, especially where money for learning materials is scarce. They also nourish the kind of participatory culture of learning, creating, sharing and cooperation that rapidly changing knowledge societies need.

You may be asking why this is so important, bottom line is this:
"Most importantly, we have an opportunity to dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world through freely available, high-quality, locally relevant educational and learning opportunities."

The declaration lists three strategies to increase the reach and impact of open educational resources. I hope educators everywhere will understand the importance and commit to the pursuit and promotion of open education.

Google & Open-Source Science Data

Good news for scientists and all who benefit from science, which of course would be everyone. Google will be providing a very large home for open-source scientific datasets. And free access for everyone!
Take a look at this Wired Science post. And the quote I copied below excites me because I believe it's saying that Google will be creating Gapminder like visualizations of the data. I'm a fan of Gapminder because information is displayed visually in a way that is easily understood. If it's anything like the current Gapminder website, it will be quite valuable. And the fact that it will have YouTube like annotating/commenting features is icing on the cake. Another great educational resource for schools and universities everywhere.

"Building on the company's acquisition of the data visualization technology, Trendalyzer, from the oft-lauded, TED presenting Gapminder team, Google will also be offering algorithms for the examination and probing of the information. The new site will have YouTube-style annotating and commenting features."

The XO Laptop, Higher Education & Mesh

My XO continues to amaze me. I haven't had as much time as I would like to spend on it, but I am continually impressed each time I use it. One thing I have learned for sure- my little green machine has an incredible wireless range (approx. 3 times that of most laptops). I was in a Peet's Coffee shop two days ago, which had no wireless connection for their customers, along with two others who were working on their laptops, but not online. It took me two minutes to connect to an open wireless network a couple of blocks away. Others looked perplexed when they saw what appeared to be a green and white toy machine connected to the Internet, which they could not access. I told them that the next time they were able to get online they should google "One Laptop Per Child" and learn how to get the most advanced technology available. And that's what I want to discuss in this post.

I plan to meet up with a couple other XO laptop owners soon so we can all mesh. What is mesh? Well, here's my earlier post on the mesh network to check out if you are unfamiliar with the term. Be sure to watch the short video.

Now I'm not a techie by any means so keep that in mind, but I'm trying to understand some things. Why don't our expensive computers contain mesh networks? Doesn't this make perfect sense, especially in the context of higher education? Isn't collaboration more important than ever when it comes to research? Once I saw how the mesh network worked, I imagined the students at my university using this technology for course projects (with profs and librarians meshing right in the middle of them and assisting as they work), and then I imagined university students from all over the country being able to mesh, and then I thought of the global community. It blows my mind that a computer that cost under $200. to build contains these advanced open source technologies. Is open source the answer? If so, why isn't higher ed totally embracing the open source community? Maybe even leading in the open source movement? Perhaps this is already happening and I'm simply unaware? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!